Steam's annual Summer Sale has arrived, offers hefty savings on 'thousands' of games

[Polycount]

Summer Savings: Epic and GOG's respective summer discount extravaganzas may have come to a close now, but that doesn't mean you've run out of chances to snag great games on the cheap. Valve has finally kicked off its annual Steam Summer Sale, bringing deep discounts on thousands of games.

Obviously, the best way to experience all that the Summer Sale has to offer is to dive right in, but there are a few important details worth mentioning in regards to this sale. For starters, Valve is using the Summer Sale as an opportunity to launch its rumored loyalty program.

Now, whenever you make a purchase on Steam, you'll earn points ($1 = 100 points) that you can spend in the new, "here-to-stay" Points Shop. The Shop contains animated chat stickers, unique profile backgrounds, badges, new emotes, and a handful of other goodies.

You'll even find rewards that represent some of your favorite games. For example, there's an animated sticker for Geralt (of The Witcher 3 fame) hanging out in a bathtub, and another that shows Doom Eternal's Marauder enemy saying hello to a bunny.

As for sale-specific features or events, Valve doesn't have much to offer this time around. You will be granted a one-time $5 discount on any order that comes in at $30 or more, but that's about it.

However, given Valve's spotty track record with meta events lately (they've ranged from bad to worse), perhaps it's for the best that the company is doing away with unnecessary gimmicks this year.

Since there are far too many discounts to cover here, we won't even try. However, rest assured that most games you're likely to be interested in have probably seen some sort of discount.

Steam's 2020 Summer Sale ends on July 9 at 10AM PT, so you've got exactly two weeks to supplement your likely-already-bloated Steam library with a few (dozen) extra games.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/85781-steam-annual-summer-sale-kicked-off-today-thousands.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Ever since you told me CS:GO was free, I downloaded it and have been playing it a lot. Still an awesome game so many years later. I definitely love it more than 1.6.

DCS World's Persian Gulf, F-16, Harrier and FA-18 modules are on sale, but It will still cost me over $100 to buy them. It's amazing that the creators allowed us free access to all their content 2 months ago because the value was incredible.

 

[psycros]

It annoys the heck out of me how Steam always hides the regular "newly updated" game list whenever they have a sale. Thankfully you can still get to it here: https://store.steampowered.com/explore/new/

 

[KILLCHRISU]

Lord Gabe has blessed us once again https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd....293/446C3B425B0A7D7C6D31DDD0565724EFF1E1446F/

 

[CaptainElwood]

I always wait and buy games during the summer sale but most of the newer games are to much for my old 1080ti...I still have a bunch from last year that I haven't really played because I was underwhelmed with the performance increase/cost of the 2080Ti. Hopefully the 3080 or Ti (if it's not $2k) is as good as it seems to be, I'll finally be able to really push these newer titles at 4k.

 

[stewi0001]

Woke up this morning with an email show my whole wish list is on sale lol!

 

[rrwards]

I always wait and buy games during the summer sale but most of the newer games are to much for my old 1080ti...I still have a bunch from last year that I haven't really played because I was underwhelmed with the performance increase/cost of the 2080Ti. Hopefully the 3080 or Ti (if it's not $2k) is as good as it seems to be, I'll finally be able to really push these newer titles at 4k.

There's no way that "most of the newer games are too much for my old 1080ti" unless you're playing at 4k and never thought to turn anything down.

 

[m4a4]

Woke up this morning with an email show my whole wish list is on sale lol!

Same. Got a "22 games on your wishlist are on sale".

Got 2 of them.

 

[Nobina]

There are a few games I want to buy that are 70% off yet when I buy them I don't even install them.

 

[Stark]

Well... its a sale but the discounts are exactly like mid week madness and not the "summer sale" per-se, dare I say that Epic was better with its promotion offering discount plus unlimited 10 USD$ coupons on games with 14.99 USD$ plus price....
:sigh:

 

[Adhmuz]

Well... its a sale but the discounts are exactly like mid week madness and not the "summer sale" per-se, dare I say that Epic was better with its promotion offering discount plus unlimited 10 USD$ coupons on games with 14.99 USD$ plus price....
:sigh:

How's Epic's in-game friend integrations for none Epic games going? How's that community forum coming along and in-game user created content? You get what you pay for, and as much as Epic wants to bribe me I just don't care enough to use their platform for more than the one game I have on there. And that game required me to delete all but the one friend I wanted to play with or they would never show up...

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I've stopped using Steam since their horrific UI update back in October. It hogs resources, crashes at times, fails to launch games or games crash when starting........I haven't played a single game I've had on Steam for months now. Can't say I miss it. If by some chance Steam can fix all the bugs that came with the UI update I'll give it a try again, but last I heard from my brother that uses the updated UI he's still having all the same issues and it's been 8 months now.

Since last October any game I've purchased has been on GoG and I experience zero issues launching games outside of the GoG Galaxy program or just straight from the .exe file.

 

[CaptainElwood]

There's no way that "most of the newer games are too much for my old 1080ti" unless you're playing at 4k and never thought to turn anything down.

Yeah, I play at 4k. I try to find a balance by turning things down but I like all the shiny stuff. Reducing the resolution always makes it look terrible (at least on my monitor, my TV still looks great at 1080p) so I end up turning things off instead. I'm not saying it's unplayable, and for games like the Witcher 3 turning things down didn't really make me miss much. For other games, turning things down can make you miss a lot. I'm more just annoyed that there still isn't an affordable option to play at 4k ultra settings...4k monitors have been readily available for 8 ish years... Time for Nvidia to stop stalling, hopefully AMD (even Intel) can get some competition on the higher end.

 

[CaptainElwood]

How's Epic's in-game friend integrations for none Epic games going? How's that community forum coming along and in-game user created content? You get what you pay for, and as much as Epic wants to bribe me I just don't care enough to use their platform for more than the one game I have on there. And that game required me to delete all but the one friend I wanted to play with or they would never show up...

Why is there no respect for Epic? I don't play with friends, if I do multiplayer I'm fine with random matches (I know that's just my opinion but I also think that is a large portion of users). The sales on Epic were...epic? Competition is always good for customers, and I now have a bunch of games from the epic sale... Never played the far cry series and I got the 2 latest releases for under 10$ what's not to like?

 

[Adhmuz]

Why is there no respect for Epic? I don't play with friends, if I do multiplayer I'm fine with random matches (I know that's just my opinion but I also think that is a large portion of users). The sales on Epic were...epic? Competition is always good for customers, and I now have a bunch of games from the epic sale... Never played the far cry series and I got the 2 latest releases for under 10$ what's not to like?

Because they buy exclusivity from developers. So you either have to wait to play the game on the platform you prefer to use, or never get it at all. I have no issue with competition, heck I'll take all the free games Epic wants to throw at me, I just don't like when that competition pays to not have competition. It defeats the whole point of Epic being competition for Steam and allowing end users to have free choice, if by bribing developers they remove that choice. I have similar distaste for the other platforms that have forced exclusivity, which all require you to have yet another games launcher on your PC for the sake of 1 or 2 games.

 

[Shadowboxer]

This points crap is annoying and I don’t give a dam. Who’s sad enough for all of that rubbish?

This sale is average at best, Epic gave us far better discounts in their sales.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Because they buy exclusivity from developers. So you either have to wait to play the game on the platform you prefer to use, or never get it at all. I have no issue with competition, heck I'll take all the free games Epic wants to throw at me, I just don't like when that competition pays to not have competition. It defeats the whole point of Epic being competition for Steam and allowing end users to have free choice, if by bribing developers they remove that choice. I have similar distaste for the other platforms that have forced exclusivity, which all require you to have yet another games launcher on your PC for the sake of 1 or 2 games.

You know that it’s possible to install more than one launcher on the same PC?

 

[Adhmuz]

You know that it’s possible to install more than one launcher on the same PC?

I do... I have 5 damn launchers installed on my PC, every one of them other than Steam is used for a single game, or even the occasional play game.

Do you understand my issue with Epic's strategy?

 

[CaptainElwood]

I do... I have 5 damn launchers installed on my PC, every one of them other than Steam is used for a single game, or even the occasional play game.

Do you understand my issue with Epic's strategy?

I guess I could see that as an issue on resource limited machines, although, if you're buying the latest games from any store I don't think that's likely the case. I gave up that fight a long time ago when everything went to launchers. Steam, origin, blizzard, epic, whatever the Ubisoft one is... They all suck and it's even worse with EA and Ubisoft, you buy the games from somewhere else but it still launches from their launchers... Literally launching launchers!! I guess I just don't think that's a battle work fighting, the war has already been lost... Just get the games you like for as cheap as you can.

 

[Shadowboxer]

I do... I have 5 damn launchers installed on my PC, every one of them other than Steam is used for a single game, or even the occasional play game.

Do you understand my issue with Epic's strategy?

No I don’t. I don’t understand why you are so bothered if a game launches from Epic and not from steam. Is it that much of a hardship? I manage it just fine. It’s also not really an “exclusive” game. The only people “excluded” are games companies. You’re included mate .

 

[Adhmuz]

No I don’t. I don’t understand why you are so bothered if a game launches from Epic and not from steam. Is it that much of a hardship? I manage it just fine. It’s also not really an “exclusive” game. The only people “excluded” are games companies. You’re included mate .

IMO Epic's platform is inferior to Steam's in every way, I just rather not use it. When a non Epic developed game launches and is a timed exclusive to their inferior platform I'm annoyed, especially when I own the entire back catalogue of said game on Steam already, I understand I'm being pedantic. However I still believe Epic shouldn't be buying exclusivity deals unless they can offer a comparable experience to the competition.

 

[Shadowboxer]

IMO Epic's platform is inferior to Steam's in every way, I just rather not use it. When a non Epic developed game launches and is a timed exclusive to their inferior platform I'm annoyed, especially when I own the entire back catalogue of said game on Steam already, I understand I'm being pedantic. However I still believe Epic shouldn't be buying exclusivity deals unless they can offer a comparable experience to the competition.

I agree, the epic launcher has less features than steams launcher. But I never use those features anyway. I don’t really understand why anyone would, there are free third party alternatives for all of them.

I think exclusivity would bother me if it kept the price high. But it’s the opposite, games sell for less on epic. Last month RDR2 was £24 on Epic. Today it’s £44 on steam. That’s a joke of a difference and I really wouldn’t pay an extra £20 to have it on steam.

Also I do think that at somepoint the steam only boys are going to have to install a second launcher. I mean the more time passes the less games there are on steam and more on Uplay, Origin, gog, epic etc.

Of course I am assuming you don’t have any other launchers than steam. Because Uplay, Origin, even GoG have paid for exclusives. Steam has paid for exclusives too, although I guess that doesn’t bother you?